From Youth Maturity to Global Government : The Utopian Tapestry

By Cyril Belshaw

We have the intellectual tools to create a practical Utopia by the end of the 21st Century.. A theory of innovation, and the vast socio-cultural changes of the last quarter-century, provide an anchor. There has been a growth in the power of peoples. What is needed now is for the peoples to influence institutions to take the steps towards a Utopian world.In the first part I concentrate on changing education by means of Youth Maturity Institutes incorporating schools into wider organisations. They will bring together interests and expertise focussed on the growing maturity of the child as he/she learns to become adult. It is here that we will have a chance to instil the central value of courtesy and to enable individuals to control the anger and violence that is bedevilling the world. Among a range of other goals will be such themes as creativity, risk-taking, the defeat of boredom: values essential to a balanced adult persona, and the absence of which are at the root of most social ills. The second section emphasizes the notion of a holistic tapestry. We cannot expect a Utopian solution in one dimension of society to succeed unless it is articulated with the rest. Thus parental influences in the Youth Maturity Institutes will not be fully functional if the relations between men and women are dysfunctional. This essay is not the place to elaborate on all the many dimensions, from control of criminality to zero-based taxation and universal minimum income. Instead there is a summary list of the threads which must be woven to succeed The third section jumps to the constitution of global government. Now we build on the confidence of the earlier sections to tackle world order. Global Government emerges from an analysis of the weaknesses in the present system. It will be a true world government deriving its authority from an elected body based on population units. It is organised into functional departments rather than the present independent organisations. It has an elected Cabinet and Ministers and a monopoly of military forces. We cannot depend on national governments. They still work in a culture of competitive power, and are mostly far behind the wishes of their peoples. We need an alternative source of movement to give power to the people. I suggest that the most likely form to succeed would be a Council of International NGOs, mobilizing opinion to push governments and the UN to take the necessary steps.

PrologueResponsibilities of EducationWeft and WarpThe Global OrderEpilogueAppendix on Global TrusteeshipNotes

Prologue

Studies of Utopia have in the past primarily focussed on imaginative literary expression, without worrying about the practicality of achieving what the mind imagines. There is a sense in which such work, valued in creating Alice in Wonderland mirrors and critical appraisals of inadequate human society, were precursors of later science and fantasy fiction. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the focus partially shifted. On the one hand entrepreneurs endeavoured to create living, real, Utopian societies, localized in space, through colonies and communes. At the same time, led by Marxism or religious fervour, ideologies – the governance of behaviour through fundamental principle – took on an even stronger role in guiding political and socio-cultural action.It is my contention that the twenty-first century can celebrate the evolution of Utopian propositions into forms which provide practical guidance for those of us who wish to create the best of possible worlds. This presentation is intended to be a step in that direction. At first sight, the subject matter of the two subjects I elaborate – education and world government – appear only marginally connected to each other, if at all. In fact the connection is fundamental on three grounds. The first is that an educational system which succeeds in creating youth maturity, and especially maximizing the broadest aspects of courtesy and understanding while minimizing aggression, anxiety and dysfunction, would be a major facilitator toward the goal of a just and effective world government. The second is that a just and effective world government, freed from the trappings of state nationalism, is an essential prerequisite for the principles of engendering youth maturity to become global, rather than a privilege of rich countries. The third is that a practical Utopian society must be based on holistic premises – in other words each facet of the societal continuum affects the capability of the other facets to perform optimally(1) .If this is so, then other social themes than the ones I have selected must be of similar importance. It would be beyond the patience of the readers of this essay for me to devote equal weight to them. But we must recognize them. Thus in a linking section entitled Weft and Warp I give the gist of the kinds of Utopian reforms which are needed in parallel to the ones I discuss at length, indicating the kinds of changes that must be envisaged.An underlying theme is that we have at our fingertips all the technical apparatus that we need to achieve our goals. A basic premise is that most of humankind wants a peaceful globe without violence of any kind, yet respecting and valuing cultural difference and variety. Since we have the means, it is not unreasonable to have the ambition to reach the kind of global Utopia I envisage by the year 2001, that is within the century. Such is the current momentum of societal change. We have the choice of letting that momentum run its chaotic way unchecked, or of consciously deciding to guide it into paths we want to follow. It is, as never before, up to us.